The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has been called the law firm for black America. Once run by Thurgood Marshall, the group played a major role in desegregating public schools and fighting restrictions at the ballot box.

Now, the Legal Defense Fund is preparing for a new leader — just as the Supreme Court considers cases that could pare back on those gains.

As city populations rise and fall, and shift – trends reflected in U.S. Census Bureau data – municipalities are tasked with redistricting their city council boundaries. And in one Arkansas city, new software helps with the process.

At a U.S. Senate hearing Wednesday about ending the 'school-to-prison pipeline,' leaders in the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice said they expect to provide guidance to schools about school discipline policies, a measure that would add to the growing list of actions the current administration has taken in this arena.

At a congressional hearing billed as the first-ever focused on ending the “school-to-prison pipeline,” Edward Ward emerged as a voice of experience.

Ward, a recent high school graduate from Chicago, recalled classmates suspended for failing to wear ID badges and security officers patrolling hallways. Arrests were so common that a police processing center was created on campus “so they could book students then and there,” he said at the hearing Wednesday.